England pick squad for New Zealand tour, leave out Jonny Bairstow

England have left out wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow from the squad slated to travel to New Zealand for a two-test series beginning November. But the English Cricket Board (ECB) have announced that Bairstow will be included in the T20 squad though. The 29-year-old wasn’t in the best of form in the recently held Ashes series, aggregating 214 runs from the five Tests he played for a not very impressive average of 24. Jos Butler, who fared a little better with a tally of 247 runs was included as the first-choice wicketkeeper for the New Zealand Tests with Ollie Pope as his back-up. The 21-year old Pope has featured in only 2 Tests till date, scoring 54 runs from those outings. The ECB has chosen to give openers Zak Crawley of Kent and Dom Sibley of Warwickshire a place in the squad along with Lancashire fast bowler Saqib Mahmood and county-mate leg spinner Matt Parkinson.

The 24-year old Sibley’s performance in county cricket of late has particularly been impressive and has caught the selectors’ eye above everyone else. The Warwickshire right-hand bat’s 1324 runs in the last season included 5 hundreds and 5 fifties with a top score of 244 and finishing with a very impressive average of 69.68.

Mahmood and Parkinson have managed to scalp 21 and 19 wickets for Lancashire and find their names in the Twenty-Twenty squads for the 3 T20 fixtures in New Zealand. Veteran James Anderson will miss out on the tour and should be back from his injuries for the South African tour in December. Opener Jason Roy who struggled to accumulate 110 runs from his 8 innings in the Ashes series also has been left out for the New Zealand tour. There are two more maiden call-ups in the form of Tom Banton of Somerset, with 549 runs in this summer’s T20 Blast and Pat Brown of Worcestershire, 17 wickets in the same T20 tournament.

31-year old leg-spinner Adil Rashid, who was given a limited-overs contract by the ECB has also found his way into the squad while Moeen Ali’s name does not figure in the list after it was decided he would take the New Zealand tour off to recover from what he has described as a taxing period of cricket.